EFFECTS OF CARELESS SHOOTING. 237 



attract attention. Her entire beak had been 

 shot away. Indeed, both mandibles and the 

 tongue were gone, leaving a wide aperture, the 

 edges of which, under the healing influence of 

 dame Nature, had hardened into a pair of horny 

 lips ; and thus the poor bird unable to procure 

 - its usual insect food, or to pick up any scattered 

 grains of corn was compelled to haunt a small 

 barley stack, near the keeper's house ; the sheaves 

 of which being loosely placed together, she con- 

 trived to extract the ears separately, and to pro- 

 vide herself with sufficient food, for she was by 

 no means in bad condition when killed by chance 

 at the close of the season. 



But the number of birds thus maimed or dis- 

 abled, are as nothing compared with those which, 

 appearing scarcely to wince under the effects of a 

 long shot, are fated to perish miserably in some 

 remote corner of a wood, unless the fox or the 

 stoat should fortunately discover the spot, and 

 charitably anticipate their wretched end. The 

 amount of mischief occasionally perpetrated by 

 the novice, who is thoughtlessly permitted to 

 shoot at every thing, because he seldom succeeds 

 in bagging a bird and is therefore erroneously 

 supposed to commit less havoc than a good shot, 

 is really incalculable. The lord of the manor, if 

 he is himself no sportsman, but merely preserves 



